Last week John Kasich submitted his latest education reform bill to the legislature via Senator Peggy Lehner. We’ve posted about that introduction of ideas now known as Senate Bill 316, and I personally wrote about a proposal referred to as the Third Grade Reading Guarantee. The proposal is an ill-conceived method of enforcing big-government ideas onto local school board decisions under the guise of providing the “best” solution for students. But when the administration revealed the research that is the driving force behind this recycled plan, they revealed their own flaws in reading and […]

We gathered at the statehouse yesterday to demand Governor Kasich review the $7 billion in annual exemptions, credits and deductions that riddle our tax code. Earlier this month, Kasich issued a challenge to the taxpayers of Ohio by saying, “You got any more loopholes you want closed, bring ‘em to us.” In response, One Ohio Now and Fight for a Fair Economy Ohio partnered for a Rally for Taxpayer Fairness. Here’s my video from the event…

Room for Corruption:

Tax loopholes are often special tax breaks that tend to allow the rich to skip […]

The tax system in Ohio is unfair. It’s a regressive tax system. We need a fair tax system in Ohio. We need a progressive tax system.

What do I mean when I say Ohio has a regressive tax system? If you look at all of the taxes people pay in Ohio, and add them together, the tax responsibility we all share, is spread in such a way that it cuts into the basic security of those who have less and isn’t asking enough from those who have most.

Big, big, big news today from the Office of the Ohio Inspector General.

The Inspector General’s Office received a complaint in September 2011 that a lottery employee may have been using a state credit card to purchase gasoline for personal use.

Six months later, the Office released this stunning report. A lot of work went into this. The Inspector General’s Office conducted an in-depth review of the fuel capacity and the gas mileage for a Chevy Impala. (Seriously, see pages 4-5 of the Report). The employee’s personal bank accounts were reviewed to try to determine how much he and […]

For months the Kasich administration – with support from Attorney General DeWine’s office – has insisted the Ohio State Highway Patrol already has the legal authority to operate at the newly privatized prison in Conneaut, Ohio.

And for months, we have disagreed.

Last week Kasich finally admitted we were right. Well, kind of. In his mid-biennium budget, Kasich included language to change existing law, which only allows troopers to operate on state owned or leased property, so that the patrol can also investigate serious crimes at private prisons.

Women make up a majority—53 percent—of the national electorate, and are key to any Democrat’s path to the White House. In 2008, while Obama won the election by 7 points, his winning margin among women was 13. In Ohio, the picture was similar: women make up 52% of the electorate and went for Obama over McCain by 8 points.

Because of the importance of winning the women’s vote, we will be monitoring available polling in Ohio to see how this important demographic is feeling about the candidates. We posted earlier this month that the President […]

Today Ohio saw an unprecedented interference with the right of Ohio voters to repeal harmful legislation. In recent Ohio history we citizens had a huge success using the voter’s veto to repeal SB 5. We were poised for the same victory with HB 194, but the GOP is determined to rob us of our right to control what happens in our government. Consider this: Ohio’s legislature has never before repealed a law that is the subject of a referendum.

The Senate today passed SB 295 in an attempt to repeal HB 194 before it reaches the ballot this November. Republican state legislators […]

“So now all eyes are on the Supreme Court and whether five unelected right-wing judges will put politics and corporate profits above the health of the nation.”

-Thom Hartmann

On Monday, the Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS) began three days of hearings on healthcare reform. I attended a rally in support of the law at 10:00 am outside of the Rhodes State Office Tower, where our Attorney General Mike Dewine has his office. Here’s a photo of a few of the protesters, and my favorite sign, which read, “ACA = Americans Caring for Americans.”

Yesterday’s Supreme Court arguments on the Affordable Care Act seemed to cause a bit of a panic by progressives. We received a little perspective from an attorney friend who is a member of the Supreme Court Bar that made us feel a bit better. Here is part of his email:

I agree that liberals seemed to be in a bit of a panic. I think a few things happened that made things appear worse than they are.

First, the Solicitor General didn’t do a very good job. I listened to the arguments, and the Solicitor was clearly nervous and not […]

Considering Josh Mandel’s complete and well-documented absence from his current job as Treasurer, it seems pretty ballsy for the guy to suddenly feel qualified to promote himself as the ‘jobs’ candidate. But it looks like that’s his plan.

As part of his plan, Mandel seems to have decided that his campaign website wasn’t “jobsy” enough for his new found moniker – so he’s now redirecting all traffic from joshmandel.com to JOBS.joshmandel.com.

The is, however, one big problem with the rebranding effort, and if you go to the “Jobs” section of the website it will become pretty clear. Considering […]

Our “friends” at Americans for Prosperity (AFP) are going to be in town tomorrow (Tuesday, March 27th, 2012) and they are going to be holding an invitation only “rally”.

For those unfamiliar with AFP: they are a Koch-funded and founded organization focused on getting Republicans elected and opposing, usually with deceptive astroturfing tactics, any and every Progressive cause – especially things related to President Obama. They supported Senate Bill 5 in Ohio. They support John Kasich and other Ohio Republicans. And one of their current targets in the Affordable Care Act aka “Obamacare”.